labyrinth

[lab-uh-rinth]

noun

1. an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit.

   Synonyms: web, network, maze

2. a maze of paths bordered by high hedges, as in a park or garden, for the amusement of those who search for a way out.

3. a complicated or tortuous arrangement, as of streets or buildings.

   Synonyms: knot, tangle, snarl, jungle, maze, warren

4. any confusingly intricate state of things or events; a bewildering complex.

   His papers were lost in an hellish bureaucratic labyrinth.

   After the death of her daughter, she wandered in a labyrinth of sorrow for what seemed like a decade.

   Synonyms: morass, forest, jungle, wilderness

5. Classical Mythology.,  Labyrinth. a vast maze built in Crete by Daedalus, at the command of King Minos, to house the Minotaur.

6. Anatomy.

   1. the internal ear, consisting of a bony portion bony labyrinth and a membranous portion membranous labyrinth.

   2. the aggregate of air chambers in the ethmoid bone, between the eye and the upper part of the nose.

7. a mazelike pattern inlaid in the pavement of a church.

8. Also called acoustic labyrinth;. Also called acoustical labyrinth. Audio.,  a loudspeaker enclosure with air chambers at the rear for absorbing sound waves radiating in one direction so as to prevent their interference with waves radiated in another direction.

Labyrinth

¹

/ ˈlæbərɪnθ /

noun

1. Greek myth a huge maze constructed for King Minos in Crete by Daedalus to contain the Minotaur

labyrinth

²

/ ˈlæbərɪnθ /

noun

1. a mazelike network of tunnels, chambers, or paths, either natural or man-made Compare maze

2. any complex or confusing system of streets, passages, etc

3. a complex or intricate situation

4. 1. any system of interconnecting cavities, esp those comprising the internal ear

   2. another name for internal ear

5. electronics an enclosure behind a high-performance loudspeaker, consisting of a series of air chambers designed to absorb unwanted sound waves

labyrinth

1. The system of interconnecting canals and spaces that make up the inner ear of many vertebrates. The labyrinth has both a bony component, made up of the cochlea, the semicircular canals, and the vestibule, and a membranous one.

Labyrinth

1. In classical mythology, a vast maze on the island of Crete. The great inventor Daedalus designed it, and the king of Crete kept the Minotaur in it. Very few people ever escaped from the Labyrinth. One was Theseus, the killer of the Minotaur.

A labyrinth can be literally a maze or figuratively any highly intricate construction or problem.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Labyrinth¹

First recorded in 1540–50; from Latin labyrinthus, from Greek labýrinthos; replacing earlier laborynt, from Medieval Latin laborintus, Latin, as above

Word History and Origins

Origin of Labyrinth¹

C16: via Latin from Greek laburinthos, of obscure origin

Example Sentences

He admits, 22 seasons in, he isn’t totally up to speed on the labyrinth storylines like he was in those early years, but his enthusiasm for working on the show hasn’t waned.

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Black-cab drivers have to memorize London’s labyrinth of streets and pass a test known as “the Knowledge,” a feat sometimes seen as an anachronistic barrier to recruitment in the age of the sat-nav.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

From Thomas Mann to Daphne du Maurier, Patricia Highsmith, Michael Dibdin and Donna Leon, novelists have been drawn to the watery labyrinth where solid ground routinely crumbles and where certainty—even identity itself—might dissolve.

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In Pacific Palisades and Malibu, the wildfires turned some of the region’s most famous stretches of roads — including Sunset Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway — into an unrecognizable labyrinth of debris.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Behind the front desk, pathways resembling that of a labyrinth lead shoppers throughout the store’s four floors.

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Related Words

• tangle